how it works
usdc-native bonding curves, settled in under a second.
what arclight is
a token launchpad on arc, circle's stablecoin L1. one transaction deploys a fixed-supply token (1B, no mint, no burn, no owner), a bonding curve holding all of it, and — optionally — the creator's first buy. no orderbook, no liquidity pool to seed: the curve is the market from its first block.
the first buy happens inside the launch transaction itself. the curve doesn't exist until that moment, so there is nothing to snipe and no way to front-run the creator.
how the curve prices tokens
constant product with two virtual reserves. the curve behaves as if it already held $7,500 against 1.073B tokens, which sets the starting price and keeps a small buy small:
price = ($7,500 + usdc on the curve) ÷ (1.073B − tokens sold)
- supply, every token
- 1,000,000,000
- sellable on the curve
- 793,100,000
- held for future amm liquidity
- 206,900,000
- virtual reserves
- $7,500 · 1,073,000,000 tokens
- starting price
- $0.000006989748369058
- starting market cap
- $6,989.75
- curve at 100%
- 793.1M sold = $21,251.34 in
- price at 100%
- $0.000102720042030016 — 14.7× the start
worked example — a $10.00 buy on a fresh curve: $0.10 fee, $9.90 onto the curve, ≈1,414,493 tokens out — 0.178% of the sellable supply, 0.141% of all supply. price after: $0.000007008213483690, about 0.26% above the start.
the $7,500virtual reserve is priced in but never paid out — sells can only withdraw usdc that buyers actually deposited. the virtual token reserve works the same way in reverse: it flattens the early curve so the first few dollars can't take a meaningful slice of the supply.
the curve has an end. once all 793.1M sellable tokens are out, no buy of any size succeeds — the trade panel says so and stops you rather than sending a doomed transaction. selling always works: holders exit against the usdc on the curve. a sell also puts tokens back, which reopens the curve for buying. the remaining 206.9M tokens stay in the curve, unsellable by anyone, earmarked for amm liquidity if and when a graduation step is switched on.
there are three generations of curve in the wild. the numbers above are the current one. the first tokens ran a $5 virtual reserve with all 1B sellable, where 90% sold meant $45.00on the curve. the second kept today's token reserves but only $1,500 of virtual usdc, so it completed at $4,250.27 and a $10 buy took 0.70% of the supply — too steep, which is why the reserve was raised. curve parameters are fixed at deploy, so each generation meant a new factory: arclight quotes every token with the math its own curve was deployed with, and nothing reprices when a new one ships.
fees
1% each direction, taken on the usdc side. buys: deducted from what you send before it reaches the curve. sells: deducted from your payout. fees accrue on each curve until the protocol fee recipient claims them. no launch fee.
slippage
every trade carries a floor — min tokens out on buys, min usdc out on sells — set from the live quote minus your tolerance. if the curve moves past it before your transaction lands, the trade reverts as "price moved" and nothing changes.
buying and selling
buyingis one transaction. usdc is arc's gas token, so your buy amount rides along as native value — no approval, no wrapping. attach usdc, receive tokens.
selling takes two transactions the first time: approve the curve to move your tokens, then sell. the payout arrives as native usdc in the same transaction as the sale.
gas is usdc
arc's native gas token is usdc, so gas is a dollar amount. at a 49 gwei base fee a buy runs about $0.003, a sell about $0.003, and a launch about $0.06. the base fee floats with demand — 20 gwei is the floor and busy blocks run several times higher — and a transaction priced below the live base fee hangs forever, so arclight reads the base fee and prices above it on every transaction. a stuck tx should never come from gas.
what "payout failed" means
arc enforces an address blocklist in the chain runtime: a native usdc transfer to a blocked address fails even when the sender holds plenty of balance. if a sell payout is rejected, the whole trade reverts — your tokens never leave your wallet. it is the chain declining the recipient, not the curve losing your funds.
curve progress and the bead
every token draws the brand arc with its image riding it as a bead. the bead's position is the token's real bonding-curve progress — 100% when all 793.1M sellable tokens are out, which the math reaches at exactly $21,251.34 on the curve. monochrome at rest; blue only while the token is live (traded in the last five minutes).
a curve at 74% — $9,055.03 of usdc in, price up 4.87× from the start.
arc mainnet
arclight runs on arc mainnet — chain id 5042. tokens launched here are created by users and vetted by nobody — every one is volatile and can go to zero. the contracts are unaudited: no third party has reviewed them.
factory: 0xa90A698E50c57ECBC318a12A297387c28C65c2D9
enough reading. launch something.